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Re: Please post any questions here.

Hi,

Well done! This course is a revelation.

I am developing an online music course for a provincial Government Education Department in Australia. I am currently using Sibelius and scorch to embed musical examples - I am so impressed by your JABB Interface samples in the Big Band Arranging course, both graphically with the transport controls,red cursor and it's score tracking, and sonically with the superb audio samples. Is this a workflow that is publicly accessible? If so can you tell me how!!??? If not, can you describe your processes?

1920s type arrangements

I have no real training but I love to write era/genre music, and one of my favorites is jazz that sounds like it came from the 1920s/Great Depression era, namely the more romantic or just plain fun songs.

I can nail the vocal melodies and lyrics but I have a hard time trying to mimic what's going on instrumentally. It doesn't help that the music is monophonic and instruments I'm unfamiliar with aren't always easy to discern in the often muddy mix.

I'm a guitar/bass/keyboard player who likes to compose in several other instruments but typically wings it when doing so.

I would like to know if anyone has any expertise in this era of musical arrangement that could give some pointers in the right direction.
Thanks,
Alan

The Untrained Ecclectic--I'm a PC, with Sonar Home Studio, JABB and tons of soundfonts, DXIs & VSTIs

Re: Please post any questions here.

Hi Alan,

A good way to start (since you seem to be able to mimic the style w/ piano-bass-drums), would be to try orchestrating a simple arrangement using some of the instruments of the day.

This is by no means exhaustive, but on the bottom, try using a baritone sax or bass sax (depending on key) for the bass line (with or without the string bass ... bass sax or tuba often were the bass line in the 20's-'30's).

A brass section of 1-2 trombones and 1-2 trumpets with a lot of mutes was common. I would say the sound of the cup and straight mutes were the most charactoristic brass sound, as well as harmons and a plunger doing waa-waa's if you can figure out how to do that with samples! (BTW, there is a simulated way in JABB but I personally haven't experimented with it).

For the reed section, soprano sax on top was very common. Reed sections were usually no more than three sax chairs (S-A-A, A-S-T, A-A-T, T-T-T, ...etc!) and often doubled clarinets, flutes not as much. This is not counting the low reed if you use a bari/bass sax for the bass line.

1.- If you read music, "Changes Over Time" (Fred Sturm) contains some old arrangements by Don Redmen and Fletcher Henderson (two of the best arrangers from that era) with very detailed anaylsis, but this era represents only maybe 10% of the material covered in the book.

2.- Vince Giordano: This amazing musician (who happens to play bass sax, string bass, and tuba, plus sings) is arguably the world's foremost authority on music from the 20's-30's. He has cataloged over 10,000 arrangements from long ago and if you Google him, you can't go wrong with any of his CD's which are recorded NOW so they are stereo and much easier to hear what is going on.